Wal-Mart Double Dose

Call it coincidence. Or synchronicity. Or just wicked timing. But every once-in-a-while two pieces of information come together at just the right moment. (Or the wrong moment, depending on your point of view.)

Today a family member sent me an email from the AFL-CIO's Working Families e-Activist Network entitled "Are You Paying the Wal-Mart Tax?"

That newsletter, with its infuriating facts concerning Wal-Mart's lack of adequate health care coverage for many of its workers, arrived at the very moment I was reading an article about Wal-Mart's expansion into Central America.

So, basically: bad news on top of bad news. I've included both items below for your reading "pleasure".

Are You Paying the Wal-Mart Tax?

Wal-Mart is the nation’s largest employer, with 1.39 million workers in 2005. It rakes in profits at a rate of more than $21,000 per minute. Its CEO earned $17.5 million in 2005, and five members of the Walton family are on the list of the 10 wealthiest Americans.

And the company has wrung at least $1 billion in economic development assistance from state and local businesses in the past 20 years.

Yet despite record profits, Wal-Mart still refuses to provide decent health care coverage for its workers. The result is millions and millions of dollars drained from state coffers as taxpayers pay health care costs for many Wal-Mart employees.

Wal-Mart’s workers rely on public funds for health care more than employees from any other company. In at least 19 of 23 states reporting, Wal-Mart was the No. 1 employer with workers on the public health care rolls.

In Washington state, almost 20% of Wal-Mart employees get their health benefits from the state. In Arizona and Maine, 10 got state coverage. In New Jersey, Wal-Mart is the eight-largest employer, but it has more workers on the public health rolls than anyone else.

Lawmakers in more than 30 states are working to pass the Fair Share Health Care Act, already enacted in Maryland. The legislation would make sure that large, profitable companies like Wal-Mart pay their fair share of covering their own employees’ health care in those states.

Our new AFL-CIO report details the impact of Wal-Mart’s stingy behavior on taxpayers and state budgets. Download the report today:

The Wal-Mart Tax: Shifting Health Care Costs to Taxpayers (PDF)

Of course the question which hangs gallows-like in the air is: if Wal-Mart treats its workers with such disdain in the United States, how will it act in countries where the phrase "worker's rights" is still considered an oxymoron?

Wal-Mart gets majority of Central American grocer

(Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which entered the Central American grocery market by investing in a joint venture in September, on Wednesday said it had obtained majority control of that company and would rename it Wal-Mart Central America.

The move further extends the world's biggest retailer's reach in Latin America, giving Wal-Mart a stronger foothold in the largely poor region of around 41 million people that bridges Mexico with South America.

The United States generated roughly 80% of Wal-Mart's $312 billion in sales for the latest fiscal year, but international operations are growing faster. The success of the company in Mexico, where it is the No. 1 retailer, has also heightened its interest in Central America.

Central American Retail Holding Co., which will become Wal-Mart Central America, has 375 supermarkets and other stores in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica and posted sales of about $2.2 billion in 2005, Wal-Mart said.

Mike Duke, vice chairman of Wal-Mart and head of Wal-Mart International, said in a statement that there were no immediate plans to change the names of any of the store formats operating throughout the region.

Read the entire article

Tags: Guatemala, Wal-Mart, Walmart, Health_Care, News